Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Siewert for the question. She is right to point to the fact that the full bench of Fair Work Australia handed down a decision on the equal remuneration case for social and community services workers in May this year. It is an important milestone in the implementation of the Fair Work Act. The government has acknow­ledged that SACS workers are undervalued, and this has been borne out by the findings of the full bench.

The decision is the first since the government removed the historical barriers to pay equity claims in the federal jurisdictions that required an application to prove discrimination as a prerequisite to an equal pay claim. As part of that decision, Fair Work Australia have provided parties with the opportunity to provide further submissions to assist them in formulating a remedy. The government is working with key stakeholders to provide further information to Fair Work Australia to assist in determining appropriate wage rates. We have established the Community Sector Wages Group, which will see employers, unions and the federal, state and territory governments working together to assess the implications of this case. It had its first meeting on 6 June. It is chaired by my parliamentary secretary, Senator Collins, who has been very active in trying to progress these matters. We will work with community service stakeholders to ensure a sustainable and effective community services sector.

We take pride in the fact that the changes we made to the Fair Work Act have opened up this opportunity for the Australian Services Union to pursue this equal pay case. We support equal pay. That is why we made the changes to the act and that is why we provided this opportunity. We will continue to engage in the case before Fair Work Australia in a constructive and positive way to get a good outcome for community services workers.